Friday, October 31, 2014

It looks like the ‘Here Comes Honey Boo Boo‘ scandal is an endless one. Mama June’s mother, Sandra Hale, sat down for an interview with ET where she opened up about the horrific situation — including a conversation she had with child protective services about the danger she believes Mama June’s youngest child, Alana, may currently be facing. You can watch the interview posted above.

After a long period of expansion in the number of children living in out-of-home care, most modern child protection systems around the world have been labouring to prevent such placements. Instead, they’re choosing to work more closely with families to safely maintain children in their own homes.

A High Court ruling in an action by a separated father of four may have signficant implications for the welfare entitlements of one-parent families. Among the court’s findings is the man was wrongly treated as a single person for the purpose of considering his application for rent allowance.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

13-year-old Jennette’s (name changed by UNICEF) grandmother died from Ebola. Shortly after attending the funeral, Jennette began to feel sick. When fever developed, she was taken to a local treatment center along with her mother and sister. All three family members tested positive for Ebola. Against all odds, they were successfully treated and released.

Mary Sweeney held her 2-year-old daughter, Alexandria Hill, for 15 minutes after she was taken off of life support on July 31, 2013, a medical specialist testified Wednesday during Sherill Small's capital murder trial in a Milam County courtroom.

The director of the San Mateo County Human Services Agency said Wednesday she is “horrified” by allegations that one of her employees was arrested on suspicion of having sex with a 16-year-old girl he was supposed to help.

A federal judge refused to declare a mistrial Wednesday after lawyers for an Army couple charged with child abuse objected to the testimony of a child services worker who told the jury that it was the worst case of abuse she had seen.

Seventeen-year-old Andrue claims that his mother and stepfather physically and mentally abused him and his three younger siblings for years. The teen says he attempted to end his life out of desperation to escape the alleged abuse.

West Midlands Police has been given six weeks to improve its child protection investigations after a scathing report found a 'general lack' of understanding among staff and 'weak' responses to complex cases.

A 28-year-old Mahoning Township woman who allegedly exaggerated injuries to a 5-year-old boy in a case in which the boy's uncle was charged with assault has been charged with making false reports to police.

A San Mateo County social worker was arrested on 18 counts of felony child molestation after a 16-year-old girl he was assigned to help through Child Protective Services reported they had a sexual relationship.

A bombshell federal report ranking the Bay State dead last in the nation in keeping foster kids safe took center stage in the opening round of last night’s final televised debate, when Republican Charlie Baker and Democrat Martha Coakley wrangled over who would best protect the state’s most vulnerable children as governor.

A Washington state couple are suing the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department, alleging the agency failed to properly screen a Clovis-area foster couple accused of raping some of the children in their care, including a boy the Washington couple later adopted.

Twelve state lawmakers, responding to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation that found thousands of incomplete child protective service investigations, have asked for a state audit of the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare.

The Bay State’s embattled child welfare system ranked dead last in the country in keeping kids in foster care safe, according to a new bombshell federal review that critics say deserves “immediate attention” from the Patrick Administration and his would-be replacement.

Department officials confirmed to CBS 5 News in Phoenix that children with nowhere to stay slept at 12 offices throughout the greater Phoenix area of Maricopa and Pima Counties due to lack of space in group homes and foster families. Between Sept. 28 and Oct. 4, officials recorded 36 minors sleeping overnight in the facilities -- 10 were between 2 and 5 years old, 11 were between 6 and 12 years old and 15 were between 13 and 18 years old.

It was the case of a runaway child with a seemingly happy ending. 11-year-old Grayson "Blayne" Bell of Plain Dealing was reported missing October 14th- and found the next day. But on October 16th, Bossier Parish authorities announced the arrest of Grayson's father and his girlfriend on several charges- including cruelty to a juvenile and criminal neglect of family member. And the more we learn about this family - and state policies - the more troubling this story gets.

The race for Sacramento’s open State Senate seat between two assembly members is getting heated as the election nears. Assembly member Roger Dickinson held a news conference to refute a television ad and mailers by supporters of his opponent, Dr. Richard Pan, also an assembly member.

The Valley mother who left her young children in a hot car while she attended a job interview has yet to place $60,000 into a trust fund for her children and is in breach of a deferred prosecution agreement, a judge said Monday.

American foster parents, who are seeking to cancel adoption of their Russian children on the grounds they knew nothing about the children’s health condition, did know their diagnoses, since they had a complete dossier on each child, Russian children’s rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov told TASS on Monday.

Accurate, timely reporting of child abuse and neglect in foster care doesn't always happen because federal laws encourage state and local agencies not to report every case of maltreatment — or risk losing federal funding.

In what appears to be an alarming trend, a 3-month-old baby girl was seized by Child Protective Services and UMC Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, over a medical disagreement. It has now been three weeks since her devastated mother has been able to see and hold her baby. The once happy baby Kathyrn was despondent when her mom last saw her because at the core of their being, babies NEED their mothers. There is a grassroots effort that has begun to help push back against the system and hopefully #BringKatHome.

The day after an official report found four Child Protective Services workers failed to do their jobs in the case of 8-year-old Sarah Brasse, who died of untreated appendicitis in 2009, an upset state Sen. Carlos Uresti vowed to introduce a bill in the upcoming legislative session that targets problems at the agency that may have played a role in her death.

After the tragedy in bell took the lives of 8 people, including six children, many have wondered if it could have been avoided. Especially since the Department of Children and Families was investigating the case. Two DCF employees have moved to other positions within the agency for half the pay.

A new study of foster care in Canada led by a researcher at Western University reveals a shrinking number of foster care providers are available across the country to care for a growing number of children with increasingly complex disorders.

The youngster accused of molesting an 8-year-old boy in a Buffalo residential facility earlier this month has been relocated to another home for displaced children, Erie County Social Services officials said Thursday.

NONGOVERNMENTAL organisations (NGOs) have criticised Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini’s establishment of a ministerial committee to investigate backlogs and lapses in the foster care grant system.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Congresswoman Dina Titus pledged federal support Thursday in the push to reform Clark County’s child welfare system, now under scrutiny after a child was killed in foster care.

The special legislative Committee on Child Protection agreed to add several proposals for lawmakers to consider in January in an ongoing effort to boost the state’s child protection laws after the deaths of two toddlers this year.

But when he was old enough to obtain a driving permit, he was in foster care. Foster families weren't willing to assume the liability of young driver so none would give their consent for him to get a license.

There is an immediate need for funding to sustain and scale-up programming that supports the special needs of children who have been orphaned by caregivers’ deaths from Ebola, or who are extremely vulnerable because of the disease.

The grandmother of 4-year-old Eric Dean, whose death by abuse in 2013 exposed gaps in Minnesota's child protection services, said Thursday that the state Republican Party agreed with her request to remove the child's photo from a TV ad critical of Gov. Mark Dayton.

The state Office of the Inspector General found that four Child Protective Services workers failed to follow state policy in the case of Sarah Brasse, an 8-year-old girl who, while under the watch of CPS, died of untreated appendicitis in 2009.

For about nine months, foster care caseworkers and their bosses made 13 visits to the Lauderhill home of Tamiyah Audain, held 30-minute meetings, conferred with other social service workers and filed numerous reports, all of which documented the preteen was in good health. She was actually losing half her body weight and slowly filling with poisons.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Most young adults can’t wait to turn 21, but for teens in the foster care system, the freedom that comes with this particular birthday is often coupled with panic and confusion. Finding a place to live, getting a job or continuing school with little help often proves to be too overwhelming.

State government lawyers refused to acknowledge that horrific sexual abuse suffered by Aboriginal girls at a western NSW foster home ever took place as they sought to avoid legal liability for the abuse "at all cost", the royal commission into child sexual abuse has heard.

There are a number of parents who are familiar with having been pulled discreetly aside by a teacher or doctor and told that their child’s disruptive behavior needed to be treated with a psychotropic or psychiatric medication.

Matt, 14, Terrick, 12, and Joseph, 11 pretended to go to church that day in 2006, but in secret they had planned to run away and never come back. No more living with an angry grandmother who drank. No more beatings with the belt.

Olga Roche, the disgraced former child welfare chief ousted in April amid a firestorm of criticism, quietly retired as a state employee last Friday — right after she turned 60 — scoring a potentially hefty pension bump in the process, the Herald has learned.

Prosecutors in the Adrian Peterson child abuse case have a tough fight ahead of them ... they tried to 86 the judge for trashing them ... and they just failed. Judge Kelly Case will continue to preside in the trial ... even after calling the district attorney and Adrian's attorney "media whores." TMZ broke the story ... the D.A. demanded and got an apology from the judge ... but they wanted more -- they wanted him off the case.

In Lake County, a disfigured 2-month-old whose mother did not want him is left alone in a motel room for 90 minutes, and is later found smothered. His family had been the subject of 38 prior investigations by the state’s child welfare agency.

An internal audit by the Bastrop County sheriff’s office has revealed dozens of cases with deficiencies because of improper record-keeping by one of investigators.

According to a statement issued by the sheriff’s office, 44 of 129 cases assigned to investigator Robert Torres between August 2012 and August 2014 lacked supplemental reports from other agencies — including state Child Protective Services reports — missed files or did not update investigations in the sheriff’s office’s system.

In treating the injured 2-year-old adopted daughter of Army Maj. John E. Jackson and his wife, Carolyn, a doctor testified Tuesday that he was reminded of a patient he had seen two years earlier with similar injuries: the girl’s adopted brother.

Last year, Yun Suk “Lee” Manchester was at the center of “a perfect storm”: a 2-year-old boy had become a virtual orphan when his mom, a drug-addicted prostitute, abandoned him to a stranger, but then insisted on taking him back. Child protection administrators left him in limbo, only to see him again months later at the Miami morgue.

A girl who was physically and sexually abused from the age of five until 15 by her foster parents at a home for Indigenous children was also lied to and convinced to be so terrified of her biological parents she would not speak to them, the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse has heard.

Three former County foster children have reached out-of-court settlements with the Highland Shores Children’s Aid Society for damages stemming from sexual abuse sustained while they were in the society’s care.

An increasing number of migrant children are being detained in countries where they are seeking asylum despite a growing body of scientific evidence that such incarceration leads to long-term psychological and developmental difficulties.

The mother and grandparents of a foster child placed in the same home as 16-month-old Michell Momox-Caselis, who was killed Oct. 12 in an apparent murder-suicide involving her foster father, said they raised concerns about the foster home on numerous occasions, but that authorities didn’t listen.

Parents in Seattle, Wash. are suing the Department of Social and Health Services after they discovered their adopted 12-year-old son had molested their other children. Trish and Steven, who do not want their last names used, have seven children: four biological and three adopted.

After capturing national media attention in September over her right to live and the prerogative of parents to make medical decisions for their children, 16-month-old Aleah Peaslee slipped quietly out of public view when Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court dismissed the case that would have determined who should decide her fate: her mother or state officials.

After a resident in Petaluma, California, called 911 to report what she said were two possible cases of Ebola, firefighters responded Sunday evening in full protective gear, including medical goggles and masks. But when they arrived at the home from where the call was made, firefighters found a woman with mild flu systems, no second case and no Ebola, according to the Press Democrat.

Jack Mook, a Pittsburgh police detective, took unusual steps when he discovered a troubling truth about two foster children. Steve Hartman reports.

Note: Notice what they leave out of this story. Nothing about the real parents, nothing about how they ended up in an abusive foster home, just the happily ever after success story that so few experience in the end.

If I had the time, I could have written this as, “600 Mistakes I’ve Made as a Foster Parent.” I’ve messed up a lot. However, what keeps me going is knowing the significant need for foster parents — and how much more important that is than my ego. I’ve aimed to be as honest as I can with the foster care home-finding caseworkers and if they think I’m a good foster parent for the kids they are helping, then I’m here. Ask any child welfare professional and they’ll tell you that they aren’t looking for perfect parents, they are looking for ordinary people willing to give foster parenting a try. Here are some of my mistakes that I’ve aimed to grow from …

The First Nations advocate who has been fighting the federal government for nearly a decade over how much money it spends on child welfare says she hopes her experience serves as example. This week marks the final round of Cindy Blackstock’s long battle at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to get aboriginal children the same... Read more »

Starting Nov. 3, 2014, Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) will provide more time for lawyers to help clients who are involved in a court proceeding with a child protection agency. Clients and their lawyers may use this additional time to address legal issues by taking steps such as: bringing forward motions, participating in settlement negotiations and conducting in-depth file reviews – all of which support earlier resolution and avoid unnecessary trials. The increased hours for child protection matters is one of a number of programs that LAO is developing with the use of $30 million in additional provincial funding for family law and community legal clinics.

An Onslow County husband and wife allegedly starved their foster children --just 4 and 5 years old-- by giving them one meal a day, causing them to require hospitalization, arrest warrants say. The suspects are also accused of causing other injuries to the victims.

In 2011, a then-14-year-old orphan fled Honduras for the U.S., fearful that gang members would come after him after he had refused to join them. He'd grown up in an orphanage and on the streets, and thought that if he stayed in Honduras, he would be killed. He'd seen it happen before.

Sierra Leone's first Ebola orphanage has opened in the Kailahun district. Hundreds of children orphaned since the beginning of the Ebola outbreak face stigma and rejection with nobody to care for them. Adam Bailes reports for VOA about a new interim care center that's aimed at helping the growing number of children affected by Ebola.

Monday, October 20, 2014

Thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children who fled their violent Central American countries have taken temporarily shelter in 20 New York residential facilities over the last six months while waiting to be reunited with family members.

If the Conservatives' plans to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights are implemented, the fundamental right to a fair trial would be demolished, and the duty to act in the best interest of the child may well be eroded.

A Seattle couple discovered their 12-year-old adopted son was molesting their other children and are now suing the Department of Social and Health Services, who they say failed to reveal to them the boy's startling past.

Want to bid for a contract to care for the illegal immigrant children coming across the border? Make sure your staff members get Hepatitis vaccines and regular TB tests and can speak foreign languages — probably Spanish but maybe Mandarin, suggesting a surprising number of the children are coming from China.

An Amboy couple was arrested last week after a Converse police officer and Miami County sheriff deputies found marijuana, paraphernalia and synthetic drugs in the house with their three foster children.

Another holiday is about to pass for Gretchen Hanna without her girls. She folds a shirt emblazoned with an orange jack-o-lantern that she hoped one of her adopted children would be wearing by now. Dolls lay on the girls' pillows, initials hang over their beds, but there is no rest here. Just another long day in a lifeless room.

A disturbing pattern is beginning to emerge with children being removed from their parents’ custody over differences in medical opinions. The most famous of these is the Justina Pelletier case, where Boston Children’s Hospital fought for and won state custody of her over a disagreement about a medical diagnosis.

Vulnerable children in residential care units will be supervised by at least two staff members during the day and one at night as part of a $55 million Napthine government announcement aimed at improving safety.

The latest debate over corporal punishment continues, having been set off by NFL star Adrian Peterson beating his 4-year-old son with a tree branch to the point of bleeding and bruising, reportedly for pushing a cousin off a motorbike video game. Mr. Peterson was charged criminally with child abuse in Texas, where the incident occurred.

A radiologist of Indian origin, who fled the U.S. before facing a court trial on charges of attempted child sex, has been practising in Australia for many years, avoiding action from the legal and medical authorities. Dr. Max Mehta was held in Dallas, Texas, in 2004 on the charge of soliciting a 15-year-old deaf girl for sex during an online chat. What trapped him was that the deaf girl in the chat room was actually a police officer in disguise.

To the editor: I am somewhat surprised by the letter from Matty Nierenberg, who kindly bought a headstone for a 2-year-old girl beaten to death by a foster parent. I totally disagree with his support for the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services. ("Helping foster kids before the unthinkable happens," Letters, Oct. 14)

A social worker found the children wet and desperate to find their dad, running along a stretch of a north Spokane highway. The siblings were split up. Alkala went to a Newman Lake foster home and wouldn’t see her brothers again until they knocked on her door eight years later.

In Lake County, a disfigured 2-month-old whose mother did not want him is left alone in a motel room for 90 minutes, and is later found smothered. His family had been the subject of 38 prior investigations by the state’s child welfare agency.

If you were a corrupt judge, would you want your misdeeds aired on YouTube minutes after you behaved badly or even criminally while on the bench? That is why judges Texas are fighting against being forced to have audio video recording in their courtroom that is available to anyone who asks.

When state officials removed several disabled foster children from an Anne Arundel County group home in early July — after a 10-year-old boy died there — they placed most of the children with Second Family, a Prince George's County nonprofit that is Maryland's largest contractor for such care.

The Ministry of Justice has come up with the idea of building a super-prison for children as young as 12, at the core of which will be a regime of punishment and physical restraint. The jail will house around 300 boys and a handful of girls, and includes a planned unit for babies in case the girls get pregnant.

A 35-year-old Houston father of two young U.S. citizen children who experts say would likely have qualified for immigration relief had President Barack Obama enacted it this summer will be deported to his native El Salvador Saturday, his lawyer and family said.

While we rarely hear good news these days about Congress, I have some to share. Continuing a long tradition of bipartisan leadership on behalf of abused and neglected children, last month both the House and the Senate passed and the president signed into law the Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act (H.R. 4980/P.L. 113-183). This new legislation improves the child welfare system to prevent children and youths in foster care from becoming victims of sex trafficking and protects foster care youths who are already victims. It offers new hope of permanent families for children and extra support for those youths who end up aging out of foster care. The Children's Defense Fund (CDF) and many other children's advocates strongly supported this bill, and we applaud Representatives Dave Camp (R-MI) and Sander Levin (D-MI), Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Representatives David Reichert (R-WA) and Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) who led the charge in responding to some of our most vulnerable children's needs.

The teenage son of an Army major and his wife will tell jurors how his parents punished his three adopted siblings with vicious beatings they justified by pointing to the Bible, a federal prosecutor said today.

Before I became a foster parent I didn’t really know what I was signing up for. I wasn’t naive — I knew it would be one of the hardest things I’d ever do — I just didn’t know how exactly. There are some hard truths that every foster parent has to accept when they sign on for the job. These differ from family to family, but here are some that my foster parenting friends and I have encountered. If you’re thinking about becoming a foster parent, don’t let this list discourage you — I can attest that in the end, it IS worth it!

Under the rule of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, thousands of Romanian children were placed in overcrowded orphanages with bleak conditions and minimal human contact. Even after the 1989 revolution, the legacy of institutionalization continued. Only recently has research and public concern over early childhood environments caused changes in policies.

It is now well known that I have been working for the release of the Chibok girls and the other at least 300 girls who have been captured by Boko Haram in the last 12 months. I have visited many villages and towns attacked by Boko Haram, I have seen first-hand the devastation and talked to families of the attacks. These are tragic stories of loss of life, slaughter, rape and the worst abuses of human life one can imagine. In the mist of this ongoing tragedy there are people who have courageously helped to support the work of finding kidnapped girls and boys and helping them receive medical care and food until a more permanent solution can be found to their situation.

WE’VE been down this path before: Out-of-state monitors of Oklahoma’s Department of Human Services issue a report that is highly critical of the agency’s compliance with conditions agreed to as part of a federal lawsuit settlement. DHS officials insist they’re doing all they can to comply.